It chanced one day he was with his father Conn, King of Teamhair, on the
Hill of Uisnach, and he saw a woman having wonderful clothing coming
towards him. "Where is it you come from?" he asked her. "I come," she
said, "from Tir-nam-Beo, the Land of the Ever-Living Ones, where no
death comes. We use feasts that are lasting," she said, "and we do every
kind thing without quarrelling, and we are called the people of the
Sidhe." "Who are you speaking to, boy?" said Conn to him then, for no
one saw the strange woman but only Connla. "He is speaking to a high
woman that death or old age will never come to," she said. "I am asking
him to come to Magh Mell, the Pleasant Plain where the triumphant king
is living, and there he will be a king for ever without sorrow or fret.
Come with me, Connla of the Red Hair," she said, "of the fair freckled
neck and of the ruddy cheek; come with me, and your body will not wither
from its youth and its comeliness for ever."
They could all hear the woman's words then, though they could not see
her, and it is what Conn said to Coran his Druid: "Help me, Coran, you
that sing spells of the great arts. There is an attack made on me that
is beyond my wisdom and beyond my power, I never knew so strong an
attack since the first day I was a king. There is an unseen figure
fighting with me; she is using her strength against me to bring away my
beautiful son; the call of a woman is bringing him away from the hands
of the king.
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